Even a Mob-character Has Things It Can Do
Their current location was the deepest room in the 89th floor.
Currently, there were four entrances within the huge octagonal room, but there was actually one more passage that leads to a hidden room between two entrances. The size of the entrance to this closed room was about 10 tatami, and its entrance was splendidly camouflaged.
Inside the room was Kouki’s party, who were resting in complete relief. However, their expressions were uniformly gloomy. There were only those who cast their gaze down in deep frustration. Everyone was covered in wounds, so a lot of them had expressions distorted by pain.
Normally, Kouki would use his charisma to encourage everyone, but now, his whole body was attacked by severe exhaustion due to the recoil from “Limit Break,” and he leaned his body in towards the wall, shutting his mouth in silent.
In addition, at such a time, the class moodmaker who could not read the mood in a good way had a pale face due to the loss blood, and was sleeping with rough breathing as she frowned in pain. This fact was also one of the reasons which made everyone depressed.
Suzu’s lower half was still petrified from the knees down, and so Kaori was still continuing the treatment. Her pierced thigh had already been healed. What was left was to undo her petrification. However, Suzu had lost a large amount of blood from the attacks of the tentacles. There was the possibility that her vital blood vessels were damaged. But it could also be said that Kaori made it in time for the healing because she was Kaori.
To begin with, even Kaori was incapable of replenishing Suzu’s lost blood. Thus, she was limited to making Suzu drink the blood-increasing medicine from this world. It was the reason why Suzu’s physical condition would not return to normal immediately. It was necessary for her to rest.
Kaori had spent all of her time on Suzu, so the others didn’t receive her healing. Naturally, Saitou and Kondou who were petrified into object-like things were kept as they were. After Suzu’s treatment ended, next were the petrified two, and the other party members who understood there were still a long wait before it was their turn, didn’t complain, except for a small portion of them. It was simply because they did not have energy to do it.
Inside the dim room where the gloomy atmosphere drifted about, Shizuku wrinkled her forehead and was puzzled on how to encourage the others. Naturally, the taciturn Shizuku could not skillfully change the atmosphere, unlike Suzu. However, there was no one else to do so since Kouki was also weakened due to the effect of “Limit Break” and his defeat, so she thought she must somehow do something. She was thinking in such manner because she naturally cared about others. A true worldly-wise person.
Shizuku herself was nearing her limit both physically and mentally, and she was gradually troubled by thinking of what to do. Thus, she decided to make an unable-to-read-the-mood-style gag with the resolution of dying a honorable death. However, when she considered again, she felt as though she felt herself breaking. Then, Nomura and Tsuji Ayako appeared from the improvised passage and they conversed.
“Fuu, I think it somehow turned into a good camouflation. But as expected, I am exhausted after using such a delicate magic… I’m already at my limit.”
“It’s not in your field of expertise to be able to transform it into wall without any sense of incompatibility… But you even used only one magic array to do that, so it can’t be helped. Cheers for your hard work.”
“You also worked hard to completely undo my petrification, right? Thanks.”
From the conversation of these two people, the one who made this room and camouflaged the entrance into the surrounding wall was the “Earth Magic-user,” Nomura Kentarou.
“Earth Magic-user” held high aptitude towards Earth-Element magic which directly manipulates the ground, but it could not do delicate work such as manufacturing and forming such as “Transmutation.” For example, it could create a bulge in the ground, make rocks fly up from the ground, harden the ground to create a stone spear, or controlling clouds of sand. In addition, for someone high-ranked, they could use petrification spells and create Golems (completely non-independent doll). However, an Earth Magic user could not produce things by separating or mixing various minerals.
That’s why, though it was possible to roughly create a hole on the wall using magic array at hand, to be able to “form” a wall similar to the surrounding walls, Nomura could do nothing but constructed it using only one magic array.
It should be noted that Tsuji Ayako had treated Nomura after he had undid his petrification.
“Thanks for your hard work, Nomura-kun. We should be able to gain some time with this.”
“… I hope so. Well, with this I can do nothing but pray we won’t be found until everyone has recovered. About Kousuke… we can only pray, too, huh.”
“… Kousuke should be okay. He won’t lose to anyone in term of the thinness of his shadow.”
“No, Juugo. Don’t say that, I feel bad just by hearing it…”
The talk about the increasing safety of their hiding place made the depressed atmosphere slightly relaxed, and Shizuku smiled as she treated Nomura kindly due to the cancellation of creating a black history of her.
On the other hand, Nomura had a bitter smile as he prayed and looked into the distance towards one of his bestfriends who was not here now.
That’s right, currently one of their companions was not here. He was Endou Kousuke. With “Assassin” as his class, he was Nagayama Juugo and Nomura Kentarou’s best friend. He was neither gloomy nor a poor talker, but his existence was a forgettable one. He was a normal high school boy who could speak casually with anyone, but somehow “his shadow is thin.” His figure would be gone before anyone noticed it while saying, “Huh? Where is he?,” as they looked at the surrounding only to be surprised that he was right beside them. He demonstrated elusiveness without any intention of doing it at all. And, of course, it was also the same story when they were still in Japan.
Though the person himself was extremely unwilling, his ability was currently the most useful. Endou alone separated from the party and went to explain the situation to Meld and the Knights. Normally, no matter how much of a cheat the summoned person was, it was suicidal to run through the level 80ish floors alone. Even Kouki’s party had little room to spare in conquering the floors, only because there were 15 people cooperating.
But, if it was Endou, a man who could puff up his chest while saying, “The world’s thinnest shadow!,” he could take full advantages of his stealth skills and possibly be capable of reaching the 70th floor where Meld and the Knights were without being found by any demonic beast. Thinking so, Kouki’s party sent Endou off.